IPL 2016: Kevin Pietersen ruled out of the tournament

Rising Pune SuperGiants batsman, Kevin Pietersen has been ruled out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) after he had sustained a calf injury during Pune's previous fixture against the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Friday. Pietersen took to Instagram to post an update about his injury and confirm his departure from the IPL.

This comes as a huge blow to the new franchise from Pune who are in 7th position in the table, just above bottom-placed Kings XI Punjab. Pietersen has been in supreme form in the shortest format of the game in the last one year or so and has been a very vital player for the SuperGiants.

According to the Instagram update, Pietersen has a tear in his calf and will be out of action until at least November. This also comes as a setback to Pietersen, who has been eyeing a return to international cricket by playing for South Africa in 2018.

In the four innings he has played in this edition of the IPL, Pietersen had 73 runs at an average of 36.50. Since the start of 2015, Pietersen has scored 1454 runs in T20s in 43 innings at an average of 41.54 and a strike rate of 146.13, with two hundreds and 10 fifties to his name.

Pune has not announced any replacement for the Englishman yet. However, MS Dhoni will be hoping that he can get his team back from the setback and back to winning ways in what has been a disappointing start.